Case Number 02502

Boomerang

Every purchase you make through these Amazon links supports DVD Verdict's reviewing efforts. Thank you!

All Rise...

The Charge

A player who's about to be played.

Opening Statement

The moral of Boomerang is best summed up by these pearls of wisdom
from Jimmy Soul:

"If you wanna be happy For the rest of your life, Never
make a pretty woman your wife, So from my personal point of view,
Get an ugly girl to marry you."

Of course, in the fantasy world of Hollywood, Halle Berry is the ugly
girl.

Facts of the Case

Marcus Graham (Eddie Murphy) is a wealthy and ambitious marketing executive
for a major cosmetics company. But that's just his job. By nature, he's a
lothario, spending every free moment seducing beautiful women and sharing the
details of his exploits with his two less successful (both in business and sex)
buddies, Tyler and Gerard (comedians Martin Lawrence and David Alan Grier of
Martin and In Living Color, respectively).

Marcus' world is turned upside-down when his company is bought out by
cosmetics tycoon Lady Eloise and he meets his new boss, Jacqueline Broyer (Robin
Givens—Blankman). In Jacqueline he
meets his match. She's the one woman who can beat him at his own game of sexual
one-upmanship. Time spent in the shoes of his used conquests gives Marcus a new
perspective on romance and opens him to the possibility of true love.

The Evidence

Boomerang was released in 1992, at the tail-end of Eddie Murphy's
reign as one of Hollywood's top draws, a sure-fire leading man who guaranteed
box office success. It's a gem in the sense that it was a step in a new
direction at a time in Murphy's career when he was beginning to repeat himself
in desperate attempts to hold onto his once white-hot popularity (the film was
released between Beverly Hills Cop II and
III and immediately after Another 48 Hours). Having made a name
for himself as a comic action hero, Murphy appears in Boomerang as a
Hollywood romantic lead. He's a natural. He plays Marcus Graham with easy charm,
intelligence, and style. Given Graham's nature as a shallow lothario, it's no
mean feat that Murphy makes it so easy for us to like with him—he charms
us as expertly as he does his female victims.

Boomerang pulled in around $70 million in the U.S. on a $40 million
budget, but additional romantic comedy roles for Murphy likely fell victim to
studios' expectations that the star would deliver $100-plus million returns, as
he'd done with his action fare. It's a shame. If a romantic comedy that made
that much in domestic returns in 1992 (and around $130 million worldwide) is a
disappointment, it's only because the studio didn't set reasonable goals based
on the film's genre.

Bolstering Murphy's strong performance is a long list of talented and
perfectly-cast comedians and actors. Robin Givens is dead-on as the icy,
intelligent Jacqueline. Her performance is so strong in terms of tone and
rhythm, it's easy to underestimate the disastrous results of casting an actress
in the role of Jacqueline unable to stand toe-to-toe with Murphy, to dominate
him in some scenes. Lawrence and Grier are perfectly cast as Murphy's friends.
Lawrence's Tyler is brash, smart, and neurotic, while Grier's Gerard is timid,
smart, and neurotic. Despite their surface differences, the two are believable
friends because they share smarts and neuroses, but also because we sense a
genuine fondness between the two. In their scenes together, they perform with
ease a complex dance in which each alternates between aggressively delivered
comedy and acting as straight man to each other and to Murphy.

Tertiary supporting roles are equally well-cast. As an office mailroom
worker, Chris Rock does what he does best: fire off quick, hilarious one-liners
laced with pop culture references. Tisha Campbell (Martin) delivers a
funny, if one-dimensional, turn as Marcus' disgruntled and prying neighbor.
Geoffrey Holder, the mellifluously-voiced actor from those old 7-Up commercials,
takes a fun turn as the wildly tasteless director of TV commercials, Nelson.
John Witherspoon and Bebe Drake are a scream as Gerard's outspoken,
polyester-wearing, chitlin'-eating parents. Eartha Kitt, a pop-culture icon for
having shared the role of Catwoman with Julie Newmar in the old Batman TV
series, plays the horny and eccentric Lady Eloise with a bizarre friskiness that
reminds one of…well…Eartha Kitt. And to top things off, we have
Grace Jones (A View To a Kill) playing
an exaggerated version of her own public image, the vain, pretentious, and
downright nutty French supermodel, Strangé.

All these personalities vying for attention could've resulted in a mess of a
film, except Murphy's in the center of it all, funny and charming and, frankly,
managing to dominate the comic goings-on like the alpha dog of the pack, while
being generous and open with his fellow performers. He comes off as so confident
in his own skills that the thought of being upstaged by one of the other players
never crosses his mind. And, good as they are, none of them ever manages to
steal the show.

If none of Murphy's co-stars manages to steal the show, neither does
Paramount's DVD presentation, which boasts a passable 1.85:1 anamorphic
transfer, a new Dolby Digital 5.1 surround mix, and a couple middle-of-the-road
extras. Everything about the disc is mediocre. The transfer is relatively soft
with a fair amount of grain and some noticeable dirt from the source. It's not a
bad transfer; it's just not particularly good. The audio actually has very brief
and isolated moments of aggressive use of surrounds (check out the opening title
sequence), and dialogue is crystal clear so there's nothing to complain about
there.

The only extras on the disc are an audio commentary by director Reginald
Hudlin (The Ladies Man), and a
selection of deleted scenes. Hudlin's commentary is, frankly, dull. To be fair,
though, I've listened to so many commentaries at this point that, unless the
speaker is either very witty or provides insightful, film-school type
information, they tend to bore me. What does shine through is Hudlin's love of
his film and how much he enjoyed working with his cast. I just couldn't help
think that if they'd somehow managed to get Murphy to sit down with him, it
probably would've been a great track.

There are five deleted scenes that run anywhere from 18 seconds to nearly
two minutes. The video quality of the clips varies; some are in poor shape,
showing extensive grain and damage to the source. Still, there's some funny
stuff. Some of the clips are extensions of existing scenes and provide insight
into how Hudlin worked, giving his actors plenty of room to improvise and just
be funny, then harvesting the best portions of the performances in the
editing room, excising much of the hammy, over-the-top stuff. The deleted scenes
have an alternate audio track with commentary by Hudlin, who explains what each
scene is, where it would've appeared in the film, and why it was left out. It's
your standard deleted scenes commentary.

The Rebuttal Witnesses

Despite how funny it is, Boomerang has a major problem in its third
act. Angela Lewis (Halle Berry, Monster's Ball), a cute but
unimportant character in the first two acts, suddenly ascends to romantic lead.
Apparently, Jacqueline Broyer is too strong a female lead to deserve
Marcus' undying love. She's too glamorous, too self-sufficient, too
powerful…too masculine. So, we're given Angela, a talented and ambitious
professional woman, self-assured enough to demand Marcus' fidelity, while demure
in the tradition of female romantic leads. It convolutes the love story and
makes the film's third act feel rushed. Besides, Murphy has far more raw
chemistry with Givens than he does with Berry (just watch the interplay between
Marcus and Jacqueline in chapter 5; nothing that smart and charming happens
between Marcus and Angela).

Marcus and Jacqueline could've been like Hildy Johnson and Walter Burns in
Howard Hawks' His Girl Friday: so
equal in smarts, talent, and ambition that they are the only ones capable of
saving each other from their worst impulses, making each other happy.
Boomerang's makers, it seems, were scared away by Jacqueline's
sexuality…or maybe they were so caught up in the film as an Eddie Murphy
star vehicle that they couldn't see the picture as a story about two
lovers. Either way, its third act is a major let-down.

Closing Statement

Even with its clunky final half-hour, Boomerang is a consistently
funny film. For Murphy lovers it's a must; for those tired of seeing the faded
star in retread action flicks, this should be a nice change of pace.

The Verdict

Hudlin, Murphy, and the rest of the cast and crew of Boomerang are
found innocent of all charges. Despite a couple of missteps, they've delivered a
film that is funny and entertaining.

Paramount has once again slapped a $24.95 price tag on a disc of a catalogue
film with a mediocre transfer and few extras. Honestly, $14.95 would be pressing
the bounds of decency based on the content of the disc. Paramount is guilty,
guilty, guilty. And because I've had to render this same verdict so many times
in the past, I find the studio in contempt—not only of this court, but of
the DVD community as a whole. It can continue this recidivist behavior despite
the growing disdain of the movie-buying public, or it can choose to
reform. The choice is Paramount's.